Comment by rodolphoarruda

As someone who lives here, I’ve noticed a pattern that keeps happening in every election since social media became a big deal in the race. Shortly before campaigns start, the TSE—Brazil’s electoral court meets with reps from the social media platforms operating in Brazil to talk about the ‘rules of the game,’ algorithms, and so on. By the time the campaigns are underway, the rules are already set and agreements have been signed (literally). Still, there’s constant monitoring of results throughout the campaigns, along with efforts to better understand what goes on inside the platforms’ so-called ‘algorithmic black box.’ The rules they set, combined with the results they see, lead to a kind of ‘fine-tuning.’ You can see this in the fact that just this week the TSE asked for more confirmation and details about the algorithms, plus other explanations that, in principle, shouldn’t even have been necessary. It seems to me that this last-minute pressure is meant to get concessions out of these platforms by threatening them and/or to get key information disclosed to the Brazilian state, which could then use it to its own advantage later on. Idk, just my gut feeling of this.